"Forgetful Voters" and Label Attachment Order

Last Updated:   11/15/24  15:52

In the following I'll use the term "forgetful voter" for a voter who wants to leave the voting enclosure to retrieve a photo ID or HAVA ID, either because the voter forgot to bring the ID to the Registration Table (RT) or because the RT Official rejected the ID that the voter did bring.

The BOE Staff and I have different views about how a forgetful voter should be handled and when a voter's pollbook label should be attached to an ATV.

BOE Staff's Procedure

The following references the flowchart on page 2 of the Registration Table Quick Guide (RTQG)

If the forgetful voter tells the RT Official that they can get an ID from outside the voting enclosure, the Staff's procedure says the RT Official should leave the forgetful voter's unmarked label in the pollbook and allow the voter to go retrieve the ID. The intent is to reduce traffic to the Help Table (HT) and reduce the number of forgetful voter ATVs that must be stored at the HT. On return the voter should get back in line for the RT. When the forgetful voter finally makes it thru the line to the RT for the second time, hopefully now with a good ID, it is as if they had never been at the RT the first time -- RT processing starts from scratch.

Whether the returning forgetful voter must go to the end of the line or can jump to the front of the line is left as a Chief Judge option. For elections with a long line of impatient voters, either option will make someone unhappy, either the forgetful voter who is told to go to the end of the line or the voters already in line who see someone cut in line in front of them. The Staff's procedure seems more geared to a small election where there should be no problem having the voter always go to the end of the short or empty line.

Note that in a large election the RT line may be VERY long. In 11/2022, at times our 19-19 line extended outside the voting enclosure and all the way to the end of the sidewalk by the school's main door -- probably 100+ voters in line. Also, given the complicated ballot in the 11/5/24 election, the line will move very slowly when all booths are in use.

Other than that, there are some other potential problems with this approach. Suppose exceptions were found while initially searching for the voter's label (e.g., wrong name or wrong address). Ideally the voter's label should be attached to the ATV as soon as it has been confirmed by the voter. Then the exceptions should be marked on the label immediately. However the Staff procedure delays doing the label attachment and exception marking until after the photo ID check, which can lead to the RT Official not remembering to record the exceptions, particularly if the photo ID does not go smoothly.

Additionally, if the forgotten ID is a HAVA ID, by the time the HAVA ID is requested by the RT Official, the voter's label has already been attached to the ATV. Per the RTQG flowchart, the attachment is done after the photo ID check and before the HAVA ID check. If the voter must leave the voting enclosure to get a valid HAVA ID, the fact that the label has already been attached by this point requires the voter to be sent to the HT anyway. That's because a forgetful voter's labeled ATV has to be stored at the HT (not the RT) while the voter leaves the enclosure. Note also that for this case the RTQG flowchart does not say how the ATV should be marked before the voter is sent to the HT. Thus there might be confusion at the Help Table since there is no mark saying how to process this voter.

The Staff believes the forgotten or invalid HAVA ID case will almost never happen since usually the same ID will be used as both a photo ID and a HAVA ID. Thus the problem of a forgotten ID or invalid ID for HAVA checking would (usually) have been uncovered earlier, during the photo ID check. Nevertheless it can happen that the photo ID check passes and the HAVA ID check fails, e.g., because of different expiration date criteria. The HAVA ID case must be handled and, as noted above, there are problems with it in the Staff's procedure.

My Procedure

My alternative procedure for handling forgetful voters is straightforward and fits in naturally with processing all the "non-forgetful voters". First, attach the label to the ATV as soon as the voter confirms it is the correct label. In contrast to the Staff's flow, don't delay the label attachment until after the photo ID check is done. Mark on the ATV any exceptions noted while searching for the label, e.g., wrong address or wrong name. If later in the flow the voter says they don't have a proper ID (photo ID or HAVA ID) with them now, the RT Official just marks the appropriate ATV boxes ("No ID" plus "Photo ID" or "No ID" plus "HAVA ID") and sends the voter to the HT with the marked ATV, but with no voter signature or RT Official initials.

Then, as one of the options explained to the forgetful voter, the Help Table Official can let the voter go outside the voting enclosure to get the forgotten ID. If the voter chooses to do that, the HT Official stores the voter's ATV in a safe place and notifies the CJ about what is going on. On return, the voter is escorted directly back to the HT, probably by the CJ; the voter does not have to wait in the RT line a second time. The HT Official then completes processing the ATV, handling all exceptions. If the voter does not return, at poll closing the HT Official spoils the ATV and puts it in the Spoiled Forms and Ballots Bag at the Ballot Table.

I would be very surprised if we ever do see a truly forgetful voter at the RT, especially given all the reminders (signs and verbal) the voter gets on the way from their car to the RT; there are MANY. (See below.) It's more likely that a voter will present an ID they think is good, but learn it is invalid. They may then say they have a better one in the car, at home, in a safe deposit box, or wherever. Such an invalid ID would be handled the same way as if the voter had presented no ID at all -- just mark the two appropriate ID-related ATV boxes at the RT and send the voter to the HT, to be handled as described above with the HT managing the voter's leaving the enclosure if the voter chooses that option.

This forgetful voter ATV situation is something that the HT must already be prepared to handle, since it can come up for HT processing of IDs just as it can for RT processing of IDs. That is documented in the current Manual.

Handling Multiple Exceptions

Note that in either the Staff's procedure or mine, by the time a forgetful voter ATV gets to the Help Table there may be multiple exceptions marked on the ATV, e.g., a "V", "ID", "wrong name", etc., in addition to any "No ID". The HT Official needs to handle them all.

Because the NC State BOE mandated that photo ID checking must be done before any other exception processing (to avoid possibly skipping the required photo ID check), a voter might be sent to the Help Table before the RT Officials have done all their normal ATV exception processing. This means sometimes the HT Officials must do a few things that the RT Officials would normally do. For example, if the voter was sent to the HT because the voter failed the photo ID check and there is an "ID" on the label, the HT Official must do the HAVA ID check after handling the photo ID exception, assuming the voter does pass the photo ID check at the HT. So HT Officials really need to be prepared to do the same things that RT Officials do when handling exceptions. Just follow Step 3 of my RT flowchart.

Reminders To Bring In Your Photo ID

Every voter should know well before reaching the RT that a photo ID is now required to vote.

1. We plant a BOE photo ID H-frame sign on the walkway from the parking lot to the voting enclosure door. See the very last sign (ID=PID-2NH on page 3) in the BOE sign portfolio.
2. At the bottom of this standard BOE sign, we will now attach my much more explicit "Don't forget ..." sign to drive home the point.
3. We tape a second copy of the "Don't forget ..." sign on the voting enclosure door. See the first sign in my sign portfolio for a summary of where this sign goes.
4. Our Door Monitor Official reminds entering voters they must have a photo ID. (Maybe our Line Monitor Official will do this as well.) If a voter has doubts or questions before reaching the RT, they should ask the Door or Line Monitor Officials, who can point to all the internal BOE photo ID signs and also get the CJ involved, if needed.
5. BOE signs are posted inside by the RT lines, saying a photo ID is required and providing much information. I don't have a picture of those signs, but recall that some are extremely detailed.
6. Anyone waiting in the RT line will hear over and over and over the RT Officials asking each voter now at the RT to present their photo ID.
7. And of course there have been all the TV and radio reminders, newspaper articles, web pages by the BOE and others, social media posts, mailers, etc., that have pointed out the NC photo ID requirements for at least 18 months before this election.

If a voter does get all the way to the RT without a photo ID, having ignored all these reminders, they SHOULD be sent to the HT to be handled there as described above. This should be the case even if the voter says to the RT Official that they have a better photo ID somewhere outside. Given the reminder environment described above, I believe the "I need to go get an ID" case will happen seldomly if at all, at least at our polling place. It certainly has not been a problem in elections so far.

The Staff says HAVA ID voters are notified that they must complete registration before Election Day or must bring one of the listed IDs on Election Day. If a HAVA-ID-required voter does not do this, they are treated as a forgetful voter and SHOULD be sent to the HT to be handled there.

The HT activity was pretty low in the 13 elections held so far at our polling place, although Precinct 19-19 currently has almost 8500 registered voters. As a rough indication of the HT activity, in 11/2018 we had 27 provisionals (about 2 an hour), then 21, 16, and 16 in three other elections. For the remaining nine elections we had 7 or fewer provisionals. See Election Statistics for more details.

Our HT Officials have definitely not been overworked so far; in fact they can get bored. (Hopefully 11/2024 will not bring a deluge.) So a procedure that makes things more complicated at the RT by trying to avoid HT involvement seems wrong, especially for these "should not occur" situations. We'll undoubtedly get more HT work in November than in past elections, but I don't think forgetful voters will contribute much to that, if it contributes at all.

My Proposal for the Registration Table Flowchart

Since early in 2024 I have provided to the Staff my proposed Three Step flowchart, both in a detailed form (handles everything completely) and a condensed card form, which the Staff say they love. In fact we successfully used these in the May election with the Staff's blessing. In November, as in the May election, the Staff has said we can use my two documents at Monday Setup and on Election Day for Precinct Official education. However we must tape only the RTQG flowchart to the Registration Table.

Unfortunately, the Staff did not incorporate all of my procedures into the Manual, RT Quick Guide, etc., for the November 2024 election. Hopefully they will make those updates in 2025 after seeing how things go this November. They did correct the [name, photo ID, address] checking order to [name, address, photo ID]. I had argued for that change since long before the 11/2023 election.

Getting the Staff to make document changes can take a lot longer than I like. I do appreciate the amount of work they must do to train the many and diverse Precinct Officials, while often having difficulty getting proper and timely information from the NC State BOE. I have hopes that in 2025 the Staff will address the forgetful voter and label attachment order problems mentioned above. Also they will eventually need to incorporate logic for primary elections, which is already covered in my two flowchart documents.